Mada Masr: Journalism as Translation

Plenary 2

 

الصحافــــة باعتبارهــــا ترجمــــة 

مدي مصر

 
 
 
 
This panel was organized and moderated by Mada Masr and featured the following panelists:
Lina Attalah, Chief Editor of Mada Masr
Ahmad Ragab, Managing Editor of Al-Masry Al-Youm‘s Website
Mostafa Mohie, Journalist at Mada Masr and MA Candidate in Anthropology
Yasmin El-Rifae, Freelance Writer, Palestine Festival of Literature
 

 

Abstract

Across different media platforms, the state-run, the corporate and the independent, there has been a generation of journalists who have been fighting for a true meaning of journalism as an act of witnessing events and mediating them. Working in a context where state-engineered narratives have managed to permeate different media settings, this generation has still managed, through negotiation and struggle, to impose a certain voice that at times is more audible than others. But what is this voice beyond its being a counter-state propaganda? And how does it work itself to reach out beyond the circles of the converted? The panel will feature Egyptian journalists working across different platforms and speaking of the difficulty of navigating different revolutionary narratives. There will be time for the audience to engage and contribute to the conversation.
 

برز جيل من الصحفيين عبر المنصات الإعلامية المختلفة سواء تلك المستقلة، أو التي تديرها الدولة، أو الشركات، ممن يناضلون من أجل اظهار المعنى الحقيقي للصحافة باعتبارها عمل شاهد على الأحداث الدائرة وطرف وسيط فيها. وفي ظل العمل في سياق نجحت فيه الروايات التي تدعمها الدولة في التغلغل الى أروقة وسائل الإعلام المختلفة، لازال هذا الجيل قادراً على فرض صوت معين يكون مسموعاً أكثر من غيره في بعض الأحيان عبر تمسكه بالتفاوض والنضال، ولكن ما هو هذا الصوت بعيداً عن كونه مجرد دعاية مضادة للدولة؟ وكيف يعمل جاهداً للوصول إلى ما هو أبعد من الأخبار والأحداث التي يتم تناقلها؟

سيتحدث بعض الصحفيون المصريون العاملون في  عدة منصات إعلامية عن صعوبة نقل الروايات والأحداث الثورية المختلفة، وسيكون هناك متسع من الوقت للجمهور للمشاركة في الحوار.

Lina Attalah is Chief Editor of Mada Masr, an independent Egyptian online newspaper founded in June 2013 by former journalists of the English-language newspaper Egypt Independent following the shutting down of its editorial operations in April 2013. She studied journalism at the American University in Cairo. A former member of the staff of Al-Masry Al-Youm English Edition, she wrote for Reuters, Cairo Times, the Daily Star, and the Christian Science Monitor, among others. In 2005, she worked as radio producer and campaign coordinator with the BBC World Service Trust in Darfur, Sudan. She also worked as project manager for a number of research-based projects with multi-media outputs around the themes of space, mobility, and intellectual history.